Microreview: Dream Portal, Time Machine

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Image © Yin Yin Wong
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Image © Yin Yin Wong
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Image © Yin Yin Wong
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Image © Yin Yin Wong
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July 7, 2021
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July 7, 2021
Date
2023 July
Subtitle
Yin Yin Wong reviews Jay Tan, 'Under the Table' and 'Cave', mixed media installation, Dolf Henkes Prize exhibition, TENT Rotterdam, 05.06.2021 – 22.08.2021
Type
microreview
Author / Publisher
Yin Yin Wong for NewsLibrary
Author Info

Yin Yin Wong is a visual artist and educator based in Rotterdam

@yinyinyinwong

Language

English

Also published here

Newsletter No. 56

Instagram @sarn_switzerland

Reviewed Publication

Jay Tan, 'Under the Table' and 'Cave', mixed media installation, Dolf Henkes Prize exhibition, TENT Rotterdam, 05.06.2021 – 22.08.2021

Dear Jay,

At the time of writing I am in Malaysia, a place we both tentatively call ‘home’. It was through your exhibition at TENT (exactly two years ago today) that I realised we share more than just the country that our fathers are from. Sitting in front of your installation ‘Cave’ backed by the faint echoes and light refractions of ‘Under The Table, Aliced’, I felt vague jolts of recognition and familiarity that I could not place in the moment.

It came to me in a dream. I was standing in the corner of my father's kitchen, I was a child, warm yellow sunlight glittered through the windows. With awe and adoration I observed the workspace that reproduced the flavours from our home. Feelings of nostalgia that I had not been able to access since early adolescence. You confided in me, after I told you about my dream, that the installation stems from childhood, your favourite Xianxia TV characters and ephemera from your Ah Mah's kitchen.

I used to think that art is like a time machine; that I could look through Monet's eyes by taking in the cumulative strokes of his landscapes. But my life was not adorned by afternoons in the sun, casting my gaze to the changing horizon of the time. Like yours, it was filled with television show theme songs, the smell of fish in ikan bilis oil and ornate cabinet altars. Instead of transporting me to another time, another life, your work took me back to my own childhood. This is where I meet you; where huddled together, we take in the views from underneath the table.

Until we meet again,

Yin Yin

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2023